In the midst of life I woke to find myself living in an old house beside Brick Lane in the East End of London

Roy Wild, Van Boy & Driver

August 2, 2015

by the gentle author

Roy looking sharp in the fifties - “I class myself as an Hoxtonite”

The great goods yard in Bishopsgate is an empty place these days, home to a pop-up shopping mall of sea containers and temporary football pitches, but Roy Wild knew it in its heyday as a busy rail depot teeming with life and he still keeps a model of the Scammell Scarab that he once drove there as a talisman of those lost times.

A vast nineteenth century construction of brick and stone, the old goods yard housed railway lines on multiple levels and was a major staging point for freight, with deliveries of fresh agricultural produce coming in from East Anglia to be sold in the London wholesale markets and sent out again across the country. Today only the fragmentary Braithwaite arches of 1839 and the exterior wall of the former Bishopsgate Station remain as the hint of the wonders that once were there.

Roy knew it not as the Bishopsgate goods yard but in the familiar parlance of railway workers as ‘B Gate,’ and B Gate remains a fabled place for him. By their very nature, railways are places of transition and, for Roy Wild, B Gate won a permanent place in his affections as the location of formative experiences which became his rite of passage into adulthood.

“At first, after I left school at fifteen, I went to work for City Electrical in Hoxton and I was put as mate with a fitter named Sid Greenhill. One of the jobs they took on was helping to build the Crawley new town. We had to get the bus to London Bridge, take the train to East Croydon and change to another near Gatwick Airport – which didn’t really exist yet. It was a schlep at seven o’clock in the morning all through the winter, but I stuck it for eighteen months.

My dad, Andy, was a capstan operator for the London & North Eastern Railway at the Spitalfields Empty Yard in Pedley St off Vallance Rd, so I said to him, ‘Can’t you get a job for me where you work?’ He said, ‘There’s nothing going at the moment but I can get you a place at B Gate.’

In 1953, at sixteen and a half, I started as van boy for Dick Wiley in the cartage department at B Gate. The old drivers had worked with horses, they were known as ‘pair-horse carmen’ or ‘single-horse carmen’ and, in the late forties when the horses were done away with and the depot became mechanised, the men were all called in and given three-wheeled Scammell Scarabs and licences, no driving tests in those days. There was a fleet of two hundred of them at B Gate and although strictly, as van boys, we weren’t allowed to drive, we flew around the depot in them.

Our round was Stoke Newington and we’d be given a ticket which was the number of your container and a delivery note of anything up to twenty-five destinations. Then we’d have lunch at a small goods yard at Manor Rd, Stoke Newington, and in the afternoon we’d do collections, picking up parcels and taking them back to B Gate, from where they’d be delivered by rail around the country.

I decided I wanted to work with George Holman, a driver who was known as ‘Cisco’ on account of his swarthy features which made him look Mexican. He was an East Ender like me, rough and ready, and always larking about. His round was Rotherhithe which meant driving through the tunnel and he was a bit of a lunatic behind the wheel. Each morning after the round, he would drop me off at my mum’s in Northport St for lunch and pick me up again at 2pm. One day, we had to go back through ‘the pipe’ as they called the tunnel in Mile End and he said to me, ‘You take it through the tunnel, you know how it works.’ I was only seventeen but I drove that great big truck through the tunnel without any harm whatsoever.

Next I went to work with Bill Scola, a driver from Bethnal Green – the deep East End. He used to do Billingsgate, Spitalfields, Borough, Covent Garden, Brentford and Nine Elms Markets. Bill was a rascal and I was nineteen by then. We were doing a bit of skullduggery and I was told that the British Transport Police were watching me, so I said to Bill, ‘Things are getting too hot,” and I left it alone completely.

Then, one day we were having breakfast with at least a dozen others at the table, including Sid Green who was in charge of Bishopsgate football team, in the new canteen at B Gate when the British Transport Police came in, pinned my arms against my side and lifted me out of the chair. I was taken across to Commercial St Police Station and charged with larceny. They told me I had been seen lifting goods into the van that weren’t on the parcels sheet, with the intention of taking and selling them. I said I didn’t know what they were talking about. What were they were alleging was a complete fabrication and I had witnesses. What they were accusing me of was impossible because I had just clocked in – my clocking in number was 1917 – and there was a least a dozen witnesses on my side, but nevertheless I was convicted. I look back on it with great regret even now.

I was taken to Newington Butts Quarter Sessions which was the nearest Crown Court and I received six months sentence, even though I had first class character witnesses. I was taken straight to Wormwood Scrubs but kept apart from the inmates as a Young Prisoner. I couldn’t believe it, this was a for a first offence. I was sent to East Church open prison on the Isle of Sheppey and given a third remission off my sentence for good behaviour. It was like a Butlins Holiday Camp and I came home after four months. After that I did a couple of odd jobs, but I was full of regret – because I loved the railway so much and I made so many friends there, and particularly because I had disappointed my dad. That was the end of me and the LNER.

Then I met this guy, Billy Davis, he and Patsy (Patrick) Murphy held up Luton Post Office, but the postmaster grabbed hold of the gun and they shot and killed him, and they both got twenty-five years. He told me he worked for the railway and I asked, ‘Which depot?’ He said, ‘London, Midlands & Scottish Railway in Camden, why don’t you apply?’ So I did, I went along to Camden Town and was interviewed and told them I’d never worked on the railway before. When I started there as a driver, they gave me a brand new Bantam Carrier with a trailer and my round was Spitalfields Market, and I was paid by tonnage. The more weight you pulled onto the weighbridge at the Camden Town LMS depot, the more you got earned.

I did it for some time and I always had plenty of fruit to take home to my mum. I got together with the Goods Agent’s secretary, he was the top man in the depot and I was on good terms with him too. I got very friendly, taking her out for more than a year, until one day she told me her boss wanted to see me in his office. He said to me, ‘I’ve got bad news – you never declared you were dismissed by LNER. Our security have run a check and they found it out. It’s gone above my head and I have to let you go. It’s all out of my hands.’ He told me he was sorry to see me go because of the amount of tonnage I brought in which was more than other driver.

I was only there eighteen months. It was the finest time of my life because of the camaraderie with all the other drivers. It was a lovely, lovely job and I made friends that I still have to this day.”

Roy Wild with a model of his beloved Scammell Scarab

Roy with a Scammell Scarab in British Rail livery

Colin O’Brien’s photograph of a Scammell Scarab tipped over on the Clerkenwell Rd, 1953

Roy gets into the cabin of a Scamell Scarab of the kind he used to drive at Bishopsgate goods yard

Roy’s father Andy worked as a Capstan Operator at Spitalfields Empty Yard at Pedley St off Vallance Rd

Roy Wild & lifelong pal Derrick Porter, the poet – “I came from Hoxton but he came from Old St”

Bishopsgate Station c. 1900

In its heyday the area of tracks at the goods yard was known as ‘the field’

Looking west, the abandoned goods yard after the fire of 1964

Looking east, the abandoned goods yard after the fire

The kitchens of the canteen at the goods yard

The space of the former canteen where Roy was arrested by the British Transport Police

The Bishopsgate goodsyard fire happened on a Saterday, I was there the day after on the Sunday for the market in Club Row, when we arrived on the Sunday morning the whole area including Sclater St was still full of fire hoses and they only let the market start setting up half way through the morning, ever wondered how that great fire (in which people lost their lives) started ? ? = I know, and so did at least two other people who used to work there, both of whom are no longer alive. I’M in a bit of a rush as I’m just leaving for the market AGAIN, yes over 50 years later and I’m still at it ! !

Fabulous story of social history. What a wonderful place Bishopsgate Goodsyard must have been in its prime! It will all be lost if the ‘Goodsyard’ proposal goes ahead. Replaced with towers of steel and glass. Help retain our local heritage by objecting to Hackney and Tower Hamlets councils. ‘B gate’ can surely be re-used for parks and recreation for the local community.

Such a small world. My Dad Peter also worked as a driver at Bishopsgate after being demobbed in 1918 following the First World War and he also drove a Scammell. My Dad, still working there, died in 1959 and I have his LNER gold watch for 40 years service. Interestingly, in 1961, I met Bill Scola, also mentioned, and we remained friends for many years.

Thank you Mr Gentle Author for the many stories that you research and supply. Ron Pummell.

Maybe one reason these earlier times so appeal to us is that they required so many people interacting with one another. Places teemed with life. Everyone doing things with things. Nowadays it seems the world’s work requires so few people and things in comparison that it feels unpeopled, bare in comparison.

Have I ever told you ? Did you know ? the yard still open on fashion street was called ? Blacklyon yard? There in the early 19th c the Scammel family arrived as harness makers…they progressed to hackney cab makers, and after the first war, the eldest son who had been in the engineers returned and invented a coupling between engine and carriage…the fore runner of the articulated lorry,,,similar to a gun carriage..I like to think…the firm expanded, making among other things, the Scarab as seen in these photos, expanding …first into the covered Arab market opposite, then … moving their main factory to a site outside of Watford, but they maintained a works at Fashion Street for repair, in those buildings until the late fifties. I like to think of that narrow street as inspiration for the articulated vehicle..Anyway Scammels was absorbed by the company which became Vosper Thorneycroft, concentrating on Defence…it is interesting to consider, that even in the so called poorest days of Dorset Street, that nearby there were concerns, very much cutting edge.

From a mind that both stores and evokes the so necessary details which are the mainspring for accurate historical reportage.
The Bishopsgate goods yard served both the local and wider community well in providing jobs for unskilled labour.

Great story and pictures that take me back. As a schoolboy in the 1950s I travelled by 647 trolleybus from Stoke Newington to my secondary school in Whitechapel and was fascinated by the ‘swarms’ of brown Scammell Scarabs buzzing around the Bishopsgate goods depot and surrounding streets. Sad to see the depot in its present derelict state. Best wishes to you Roy.

Such an interesting article and fantastic photos. I don’t live in London anymore but my husband was born and bred in the East End. I knew Roy some 45 years ago and he was always great at story-telling – amazing I came across this story by chance and glad I did.

What a lovely depiction of your life and work at Bishopsgate, and thanks for posting all those photos! One question I had about that great photo of your Dad at Spitalfields goods depot. Is he standing in front of the wagon hoists they used to use to move wagons up and down from the viaduct above, do you know?

I was a van boy at Bgate for 3 years before I passed my driving test over at kings cross with instructor clarkee, my main driver when I was a van boy at Bgate was Tommy Craig who was also a nutter like most of the drivers, the van boys used to sit in the canteen and await a driver to come and call, I remember the the main dish in that canteen was cottage pie and it was very good unfortunately others never felt the same and occasional a lump from someone else plate would smack u on the back of your head thrown from quite a distance. There was a driver Harry Spall he was the vulnerable (wines cigs +) driver and if you went out with him you went to places like Braughing on the Buntingford to St Margarets (closed) branch line to deliver vulnerable for the local station woman to place in a cage, I think Harry Spall fancied her, he drove like a ct to get there. There was always fun on the hill up to the weighbridge in Bgat things like putting the trailer brake on without the driver knowing or tying the back of the trailer with sheet rope to the metal wall protector, the driver got a shock as he pulled away, further I was out with Tommy Craig one day and someone had put a fish behind the radiator in the scammel imaging when the radiator got hot! Alfie Shoot was the time keeper, and at the end of the days work we had to take the old scammel back to Sclater Street arches on the way we would go along Braithwaite Street were shops sold Birds (feathered type) on this Street we would turn off the ignition and quickly turn the ignition on and whilst doing this hit the brake this would cause a backfire and wipe out loads of budgerigars being sold in those shops and then answer to the complaints. on arrival at the arches for overnight parking attempts were made to drive the old Scammel up a coal pile. At the start of work there would be a hope you would get a Comma 4 wheel unit 3.5 tons rather than a stingray or a 3 wheel Scammel, who wants to be seen in the latter two vehicles, for some reason the stingray always put the trailer on its knees when trying to coupler up.
? O’Brien was the Docks driver and occasionally I went out with him all around the warehouses on collections but he was a little to serious with his pipe when we hollowed out the window at some young bird he used to look embarrassed. To all the van boys I say Hi mates and like to hear from you all especially Roy Savage and migray whom was one big laugh,
At the date of the Fire I was gutted, sad and felt lonely, I was given a district relief drivers job delivering goods all over Essex working for both passenger and goods from different stations
Well that’s it know but please contact me on 07902 150107 or facebook lets get a book written up. keith lovegrove

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